Changing The Way Law Is Practiced.

2006.07.23

When Lightning Blows Your Data Up

Obviously, one of the holes in our system involved data backup. We’ve had some relatively makeshift systems for doing data backup while we have moved to our new Unix Server from some Nas drives. The last two databases on the Nas drives were scheduled to be moved over onto the Unix box with RAID V and other backup systems but just wasn’t quite there when lightning took the data down. We are still sending the Nas drives out to a data recovery company to see what can be retrieved.

Everything they say about data backup is true. Although it’s an "out of site, out of mind" kind of problem, you need to take care of it. It isn’t the end of the world when you lose certain types of data such as we may have. We didn’t lose any file materials. That would have been far more serious. Get your data backup systems in place and don’t forget that lightning can indeed strike.

Comments

And don't forget to make a checklist of all the categories of back-up with your IT people! You wouldn't be the first lawyer to learn the hard way that IT people sometimes try to do us favors by selecting only the categories they believe to be critical to our business. If you discover the hard way that Outlook (and all your e-mails) aren't on that list, you can join the club.